Straightaway on the job as acting US war secretary, Patrick Shanahan said he intends to prioritize his predecessor’s national defense strategy – what James Mattis called “great power competition, not terrorism” – the scourge the US created and supports.

Mattis called it a “strategy (that’s) fit for our time, providing the American people (with) the military required to protect our way of life, stand with our allies, and live up to our responsibility to pass intact to the next generation those freedoms we enjoy today,” adding:

Greater military spending will focus on achieving and maintaining “(o)ur competitive edge in every domain of warfare – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace…”

US militarism, belligerence, and permanent wars threaten world peace, stability and security. That’s what “our way of life” is all about, along with serving America’s privileged class exclusively at the expense of peace, equity and justice.

Post-9/11, US “freedoms” eroded greatly on the fabricated pretext of protecting national security, including waging war OF terrorism, not on it.

An anonymous US war department source was quoted saying “(w)hile we are focused on ongoing operations, acting secretary Shanahan told the team to remember China, China, China.”

Mattis earlier lied calling Beijing “predatory,” accusing its leadership of “pursuing military modernization…that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future.”

He failed to explain the Indo-Pacific is China’s part of the world, not America’s. International law prohibits interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. The same goes for regions where they’re located.

The US illegally and belligerently meddles in the internal affairs of virtually all other countries, wanting planet earth colonized and controlled, its resources looted, it people exploited.

US hardliners consider Russia and China Washington’s main adversaries. Mattis earlier lied claiming Russia aims to “shape a world consistent with their (nonexistent) authoritarian model.”

Shanahan lied claiming the nation’s military aims for “non-aggression.” Earlier he said “(w)e hear about how our competitiveness has eroded. Our strategy is about how to sharpen and strengthen our competitiveness,” adding:

“There are no such things as fair competitions. There’s just competition,” America “operat(ing) in a contested environment.”

His job is to continue pursuing Washington’s imperial agenda, endless wars of aggression its dominant feature – Russia, China, and Iran on its target list, the ominous threat of possible nuclear war.

Separately according to Military.com, the US navy and air force prioritize development of hypersonic weapons. Russia’s military has what the Pentagon lacks.

Its Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles can carry multiple nuclear warheads, able to strike targets thousands of miles away with pinpoint accuracy – nothing the US or NATO has able to intercept them.

According to Tass, these weapons are “capable of flying at hypersonic speed in the dense layers of the atmosphere, maneuvering by its flight path and its altitude and breaching any anti-missile defense.”

The weapon will be delivered to Russia’s armed forces in early 2019. The US has nothing able to counter it.

On December 17, US naval operations chief Admiral John Richardson said the navy aims to “develop and field an offensive hypersonic weapon by 2025,” calling it a top priority.

By then, Russia will have even more advanced weapons, new ones the Pentagon won’t be able to counter.

Despite spending a small fraction of the Pentagon’s budget, Russian Federation super-weapons are miles ahead of the US technologically – with no prospect of things changing ahead.

Russia, China, and other nations are rising, America declining, a process begun long ago. The late Gabriel Kolko believed it began with stalemate and an uneasy armistice on the Korean peninsula in 1953.

Superpower America failed to triumph way back then, unsuccessful again in Southeast Asia, and all its subsequent wars.

It’s had no military successes since WW II ended, just endless bloodshed, mass destruction, and phony crowing about being the world’s only superpower.

If lunatics infesting Washington dare attack Russia, the demise of the US empire would follow, its cities immolated, its strategic assets worldwide destroyed – perhaps humanity with them if enough thermonukes are detonated.

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.

About Stephen

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967.